Techverse
by Arin Rowan
Summary: Because someone has to be behind the scenes cleaning up the messes the characters get into. Follow the life of female engineer as a techie dealing with bureaucracy and idiocy in various anime verses. Spoilers for Naruto and FFVII.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: As stated in the summary, this contains spoilers for Trigun, FFVII, and the first season of Naruto. I make no claim of ownership towards these series, but I do claim the writing contained within this document.

"That's it," she snapped, slamming her hands down on her supervisor's desk. "This project needs to be terminated."

He didn't bother to glance up from the photos on his desk, which seemed to be of mostly pale blonds, with one ash and one brunet. "For the fifth time, the project in question is still in the developmental process and thus not open to termination."

"Cut the crap," she snapped. "This is your third test run, and the previous two attempts have failed on an increasingly spectacular level."

He sighed and pushed away from his desk, resigning himself to a pre-recorded conversation. "The purpose of-"

"The original purpose of the project is to provide each subject with a mentor figure to guide them through life and offer advice," she interrupted. "Role of mentor figure may be that of older brother, other family member, senior in line of work- I should know, I outlined the damn thing. And each one has been a failure."

He pushed at one of the photos with a pencil. "The first model Angeal was deemed a success."

She snorted. "Right, success- he wound up abandoning both his charges, Sephiroth and the second model Zackary Fair. Sephiroth then proceeded to go insane, massacre an entire town, and attempt to reclaim the planet from humans. And that's just the **first** time he was alive."

He started massaging his temples. "It was agreed that Sephiroth's case contained a number of unmitigated circumstances that were not directly related to the project, and thus his actions can't be judged on whether or not the absence of his mentor was responsible. And as we've discussed, he was the first model and it was a trial run. Glitches occur."

Her eyes narrowed. "Your second model Zackary Fair dragged his assigned charge into that mess after the brilliant idea to clean up the first model's mistakes."

He sighed again. "The idea had initial success, and while Cloud Strife was placed in unfortunate circumstances-"

"'Unfortunate?'" she repeated disbelievingly. "He was tortured and experimented on for five years to the point where his mind was almost irrevocably shattered, pushing him into a vegetative state for more than a year."

"The model was also undergoing those circumstances, and helped him escape at the first opportunity, at the cost of his own life," he reminded her, drumming his fingers on the desk. "Overlapping the model's role into his head allowed the second subject to regain consciousness, repair most of the mental and physical damage, and eventually save the planet."

"Only after he suffered a nervous breakdown at discovering most of his memories weren't actually his and provided Sephiroth with the means to destroy it in the first place," she pointed out.

He sifted through his files. "Yes, but he got over it and found a way to counter those means. In research the specifics of the case aren't as important as the end result. Spare me your comments- let's just skip ahead to where you tell me what the third model's done this time."

The knuckles on the hands gripping his desk turned white. "While I consider them failures," she said through gritted teeth, " I will admit that both the Angeal model and the Zackary Fair model had some level of success. But the Uchiha Itachi model has had none. Absolutely none."

He selected a file and opened it. "First model to be a direct family member, first to be involved in the formative years of a subject, and first one not implemented on Gaia. I'll agree with you, we've had more problems with him than the others-"

"The model's insane," she said flatly. "Absolutely, completely, bat-shit insane."

He sighed. "Some mistakes can be made in the developmental process-"

"Mistakes?" she demanded. "Mistakes? He slaughtered his charge's entire family, joined an evil organization bent on world domination and keeps sporadically appearing in Sasuke's life to mind-fuck!"

"Once more, we're still in the experimental stages and experiencing some glitches," he said wearily. "I'm aware his role as a mentor leaves much to be desired-"

"His mentoring actions have given Sasuke severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, made him extremely paranoid and withdrawn, and culminated in him abandoning his friends and village to go train under a sociopathic immortality-obsessed hebophile!"

He blinked, suddenly nonplussed. "Uchiha Sasuke left Konoha village to join Orochimaru?"

"No, he stayed and married Sakura," she snapped. "Yes he left to join Orochimaru! And almost killed Uzumaki Naruto in the process, like the Itachi model suggested!"

He blinked again. "That... was unexpected."

She threw her hands up in the air. "Anything involving that model's unexpected! Sasuke's relationship with Naruto was one of the best things that's happened to him since his family was slaughtered, and thanks to some idiot quest for revenge that Itachi ingrained in him he threw it away!"

"His betrayal was actually fairly predictable," he said distractedly, flipping through papers in the file. "We just expected he'd join the Akatsuki and reach a settlement with Itachi."

She stared at him in disbelief before she started shaking her head. "Fucking-"

"Watch your language," he said chidingly, finally locating the paper in question and starting to scribble notes.

"If I want to cuss at an idiot who's just fucked another potential past the point of return, I'm going to fucking cuss!" she snarled. "If you were paying any attention to Sasuke's actions at all you'd know the model has long since pushed him past the point of reconciliation. And that you predicted his betrayal but somehow thought it was better for him to be near the model instead of with the network he'd built up in Konoha-" she stopped and shook her head again. "Is this like how you thought having Cloud develop romantic relations with Aeris would help repair his psychological damage?" she demanded. "Or how pushing the Zack model to fill Angeal's place for Sephiroth would prevent fallout?"

"We had no way of knowing that Sephiroth would kill her or that the second subject would respond so vehemently to her death, and as I said earlier, Sephiroth's case had a large number of mitigating circumstances." He put his pen down and looked up at her. "Once more: this is a trial run. Mistakes are made."

Her eyes widened and she started shaking her head. "You've got to be kidding me."

"You yourself just admitted that the Itachi model is clearly unsuitable," he reminded her blandly.

"All the more reason to terminate the project altogether instead of creating a fourth run!" she cried. Her eyes narrowed. "What, has your board been waiting for the collateral damage on this one to reach a critical level so they could move on to the next model without budget complaints?"

He ignored her. "It's already in the works. We've made a number of changes to the basic design this time- many of which you suggested- and we're fairly confident we can avoid any of our past mistakes."

"So we're just going to leave Sasuke Uchiha to his own devices like we did Cloud and Sephiroth, instead of taking some responsibility for our actions?" she demanded.

He waved his hand dismissively. "As you just were saying, the second model made a failed attempt to clean up what the first model had done, and the second subject eventually from the loss of the second model. "

"Cloud Strife only recovered after suffering from severe depression, illness, and having the first subject come back to life for the third time!"

"Once more, the end result, not the details." He turned to rummage in one of his drawers. "I'll provide you with a copy of the specifics to complain about." He found the file and turned to offer it to her. "The fourth model will be female, will not be directly related to the subject, and will be overseeing her charges from the moment of their births."

She eyed the file like a dead rat. "Their?" she asked, a vague hint of interest in her tone despite herself. "You've decided it's too easy to fuck up just one individual's life so you're going to try doing it to two?"

"Any simulation we've run shows a higher rate of success if the subject has another individual in their peer group to offer support," he said patiently. "At worst, it will provide us with a type of control group, but if you look over this you'll see how unlikely the need will be." Still frowning, she relented and took the file. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. "The fourth run will be a success," he said confidently.

"What are you calling this one?" she asked as she flipped through the specs, her tone bitter but somewhat resigned.

"Rem Seibrem. Her two charges are going to be twins; nothing's solid yet, but they should be identical boys."

"Their names?" she asked, still flipping.

"Vash and Knives."  


* * *

...Yep. No sociopaths bent on world domination and the extinction of humanity coming out of this one!


	2. Twins: Nature's Backups

For the record, there is a reason I have not assigned the characters names. I'm trying to make it as clear as possible who is speaking at what time, but if there is a particular section where I've failed at that, please feel free to point it out in flame-free format.

Summary: The female designer very politely requests an explanation regarding why various members of the male's department seem to suffer from severe brain damage. Trigun-centric, with references to Naruto, FFVII, and Yugi-oh. Contains spoilers for Trigun regarding Rem's and Knives's identities.    

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He turned from the file cabinet and almost had a heart attack. Metaphorically. "How in the world did you get in here?" he demanded, trying not to shout. 

 She shrugged from her perch on his desk, calmly drumming her fingers on her thigh. "I've been trying for what, three days now? You must have gotten some of my calls. Or emails, or faxes, or heard me screaming at your door. " Her voice was perfectly calm, perfectly civil.   

He resisted the urge to start whimpering and repeated his question. "How did you get into my office?"  

She tapped a white paper bag in her lap. "Your secretary only has forty-five minutes off for lunch, and she forgot to pack hers today, so I provided her with take-out."  

He hadn't thought he asked for the ink cartridge that rudely. "Is the cafeteria closed?"  

She shrugged. "No, but it's tuna salad and she tries to stick to a low-fat diet. High cholesterol," she added as he stared at her in incomprehension.   

"Why on earth would she worry about something like that?" he asked blankly,  

She shrugged, reaching into the bag and pulling out a green apple. "Years of ingrained behaviour, that sort of thing." Her voice sharpened as she polished it on her shirt. "Speaking of which, would you finally like to tell me what the fuck happened to the supposedly fail-proof fourth trial run?"  

He twitched. "Please remain calm. I know that despite your complaints, you've placed a large amount of personal investment into each of these trial runs; personal investment that-"  

"The subjects weren't human."  

He swallowed. "Plants are technically a sub-species of humanity-"  

"The subjects weren't human," she repeated slowly, as if explaining something to a particularily dim-witted child. "The program was not designed for non-humans. I have the minutes from the board meetings after the disaster of the first trial run, and what prevented the project from sinking after that shit storm was the agreement that the presence of the alien Jenova- a distinctly non-human entity- had not been within its specs." She toyed with the apple. "While I've had reservations with each model's design, I agreed on approval for each of the ones after the first with the implicit understanding that the subjects in question were to remain human." Her eyes narrowed. "And I think I can safely assume that that was why this deviation was absent from the specs you handed me, and I was denied monitoring rights for this run."  

Resettling himself at his desk, he reminded himself to cancel his secretary's bonus. "It was a last minute addition, and your approval is only necessary for the model specs. The fourth trail run had the option of being one of two sentient species, and in any simulations we tested Plants had a higher rate of positive reaction than humans. And if I may remind you, your statements at the board meeting argued that Jenova wasn't as much a factor as the failure of the first model-"  

"The first model was significantly flawed, and my argument was that the subject would have failed even without the interference of Jenova; its presence merely compounded things." Her tone sharpened. "Even if it wasn't, you still withheld crucial information and attempted to stonewall me." 

"Information is not withheld if the person in question does not have adequate clearance in the first place," he informed her briskly, "and while your numerous claims were received, I'm sure you understand that this department is currently busy-"  

"Cleaning up the mess you made before I or the board heard about it?" she offered. "Finding a way to explain how the fourth model Rem Seibrem, which even I agreed from the information your department deigned to give me was performing past expectations, suddenly wound up dead because her charge went insane and tried to kill her?"  

"Her charge did not directly engage in actions with the specific intent of ending her life, as I'm sure you'd understand if you'd gotten the information on proper channels instead of bombarding my department and bribing my secretary," he said resignedly. "If you could have waited, the necessary facts would have been made available to all relevant parties-"  

"I'm aware that Knives originally intended to spare her while slaughtering the rest of the known human race. Sorry for not being clear."   

He could feel a migraine. "Whatever plans the subject had were prevented from completion by the final actions of the fourth model, which she engaged in only after her charges were safe."  

Her grip on the apple tensed. "The issue at hand is not Rem Seibrem's performance. The issue is that the last time non-human subjects were used, the subject went insane and tried to purge the planet of humans so his own race could flourish. And Knives- before even reaching his first birthday- has essentially performed the same actions, for the same reasons."  

He frowned at her while trying to subtly grope for a file. ""The fourth subject is only chronologically an infant- in mental and physical terms he's an adolescent. They're prone to these sorts of actions regardless of race." Finding it, he shifted through the papers. "And Plants and Jenova are two entirely different entities, with the former actually possessing a much higher rate of mental health than humans. The fourth model's second charge has shown no signs of mental instability other than what is to be expected under the circumstances."   

"You mean the circumstances of his twin killing his guardian and most of the human race while informing him it's the only way to keep their species alive?" she asked incredulously. "If he wasn't mentally unstable before that how the hell do you think he's going to be now?"  

"Based on the information available about Plants at the time of-"  

"Don't give me that shit," she snapped, fist tightening around the apple. "Knives and Vash were only the second occurrence of Plants that were specifically designed to pass for human, meaning there was no information available!" She slammed the apple down on his desk hard enough to splatter juice on a bundle of files and leaned forward, eyes blazing. "You took a design I approved, applied it to circumstances that you knew were hazardous, denied me access to any information regarding it, and now millions of people, including the model, are dead."  

"A trial run allows for mistakes to be made," he said very calmly.   Her voice suddenly quieted. "Not even a trial run can allow an error of that magnitude to go unchecked."  

Keeping his face steady, he offered her the paper he'd found earlier. "Before you say anything else, I'd like you to examine this."  

She glanced at the sheet, then back up at him. "What point do you want my work schedule to make?"  

"Your assignment was to monitor the third subject until further notice or imminent possession. Has Orochimaru stolen his body yet?"   

Her eyes narrowed. "Have I stopped requesting a hit team for Itachi?"  

"Then your assignment still has six months until termination or our intervention becomes necessary. Meaning that any information you have about the fourth trial run was gathered at the expense of your current assignment, and you can be held accountable for negligence."  

Her eyes narrowed even further.   

He folded his hands and tried to convince his heart to slow down. "I don't know how you got access to the information that you did, but as things stand, we're not the ones in violation of-"  

"Shut up," she said very quietly. Her voice booked no argument. "Don't you dare try to pull that shit over me. Your department fucked up, and you can either clean up the mess you've made or I can dump every ounce of dirt I know on the table."  

He stiffened slightly. "While I'm sure-"  

"Tessla."  

He swallowed. "There was no-"  

"Black materia."  

"Any evidence-"  

She leaned forward and her eyes glinted. "Duel Monsters."  

Any color in his already pale face completely drained. "How did you even-"  

"Any project with hair that absurd draws my attention, and it's called networking. You should try it sometime."   

At times like this, he really, really wished it was still possible to kill a coworker who knew too much. "What do you want?" he ground out.  

 "I want your department to run recovery," she said calmly. "Clean this fucking mess up, by which I mean prevent Knives from wiping out the human race, and guarantee Vash's mental and physical health."  

"At the moment, both of those are tied to the wellbeing of the fourth subject," he protested. "Preventing the fourth subject from his self-assigned goals will-"  

She raised an eyebrow. "Then don't kill him."  

He resisted the urge to scream. "How do you expect-"  

She shrugged. "Call in a deus ex machina. Find some wild goose chase for Knives to go on until Vash isn't as dependent on his brother. Just stop Knives from killing the human race, and prevent Vash from going insane."   

"Do you have a reason for suddenly issuing concern for the fifth subject?" he ground out.   

She lobbed squashed apple bits into his trash bin. "Actually, I have two. First, I'm fed up with essentially dumping the subjects the moment the model dies or severely malfunctions. Sephiroth went insane, Cloud almost stayed insane, and I have no clue where the fuck to begin with Sasuke. It's called obligation. And second:" she suddenly leaned forward, grabbed his shirt collar, and pulled. "This was the first model where I had no major complaints on the specs," she said very carefully, enunciating each word. "The first model that could have actually worked. That would have worked if you idiots hadn't decided to screw with the perimeters. Knives was a failure. Vash is still undecided. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"   

She dropped him back into his seat and he sputtered for a moment, catching his breath. "You've made your feelings on the subject perfectly-"  

She rolled her eyes. "Let me repeat myself: one of the subjects on this trial run went insane. One of them didn't. Both of them had the same model as a mentor."  

He stared at her warily, his mind racing. "You're suggesting a way to save the project?" he asked incredulously. "When you've been opposed to every other trial run we've held?"   She pushed herself off the desk and stood up, stretching. "If applied to the right circumstances, I believe that the Rem model is capable of fulfilling its assigned task. I want to see that hypothesis confirmed. Vash can work as a trial run, with the right intervention." She looked him in the eye. "Of course, if it manages to get to a fifth trial run I'm only approving the design if I'm given access to all information regarding it." 

 "So you want the fourth subject to stop killing the human race, preferably without killing him, you want the fifth subject despite his proximity to the fourth subject to undergo healthy mental and physical development, and you also want to be given full disclosure over the project if it reaches a fifth trial run," he said flatly.   

She smiled brightly. "And the worst part is each of those are reasonable requests. I can make unreasonable ones-"  

"Do you mind skipping to the part where you inform me you that you somehow have a proposal for how to accomplish all of this?" he interrupted, massaging his temple. "And mention how deviation from it will result in some form of grievous bodily harm?"  

"I'll reinforce the second part when the need calls for it, and the proposal has already  been group-sent to your department level. Check the recycling bin for your copy," she added as an afterthought.  

"When did you send it?"  

She shrugged. "Approximately three minutes before entering your office." She turned to leave, paused, and turned back. "By the way, call the other management head. I talked to him earlier."   

"And he also agreed." He didn't bother making it a question.   

"What can I say- engineers are scary people. Especially engineers capable of more than basic social interaction. I'll be in later." She closed the door behind her as he recovered and opened the document. He read it, resisted the urge to throw something, and tried to remember how someone ten inches shorter and several positions lower had most of the Creation department wrapped around her finger.  

 "Duel Monsters."  

He stopped thinking and picked up the phone.   

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TRIGUN SPOILERS 

Technically speaking, manga Knives didn't exactly go insane, he just panicked. And went overboard. The catalyst for this was discovering the dissected body of another humanoid Plant named Tessla, and learning how she'd been experimented on from the moment of her birth until she died from complications regarding the experiments. After a brief period of catatonia, he concluded that the only way to protect himself and his brother from the human race was to exterminate them. For the record, a panicking non-human adolescent who realizes he's afraid of humans and has the means to kill vast numbers of them is a Bad Combination. Also, because I couldn't find a place to make it clearer, Rem Seibrem died in order to keep one of the settlement ships from crashing and thus spoiled Knives's plan to kill all humans. Knives technically hadn't been trying to kill her, but he wasn't exactly heartbroken when his actions had that result.  

END SPOILERS


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